Tag: Glenn Gould

Optimism

In his book The Art of Possibility, conductor Benjamin Zander tells the story of two shoe salesmen who were sent to a developing nation to investigate the possibility of expanding their business. One sends back a message saying, SITUATION HOPELESS-NO ONE WEARS SHOES, while the other writes with a different perspective: GLORIOUS BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY-THEY HAVE NO SHOES.

(Listen to Zander’s TED Talk if you have 20 minutes to spare. It is well worth your time.)

Optimism changes the story.  It opens doors and quells fears and creates possibilities. Psychologists write about the difference between optimism and hope, and though we often use these words interchangeably, they each make unique contributions to our well-being which should be cultivated. The Czech leader Vaclav Havel had something to say about this: Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

Hope is an emotion which expresses our desire for something we want – happiness, success, world peace, freedom. It is closely bound up with our experiences of reality, but for that very reason hopes can be dashed, as the cliche says. We hope for peace and reconciliation and love because those things are right and good, but we don’t assume they will happen.

Optimism, on the other hand, prompts us to adapt to challenges, helping us believe that an answer will emerge, causing us to persist in the face of the unknown and to believe in the possibility of a positive outcome. There is something muscular about optimism – it can be practiced and strengthened in our daily lives.  It implies “doing” rather than “being.”

Once again, going to pianist Glenn Gould for wisdom, I find that he was contemptuous of today’s music, the 17th of the Goldberg Variations. He found it to be ” one of those rather skittish, slightly empty-headed collections of scales and arpeggios which Bach indulged when he wasn’t writing sober and proper things like fugues and canons.”

Goldberg Variations, 17 (Optimism)

Oh dear, I’m afraid I have to agree. There is indeed something empty-headed about this particular variation. I’m not sure now why I chose optimism as my intention for Variation 17 in January when I was planning out this series. But sometimes it does feel nonsensical to me when we engage in any kind of speculation about how things will turn out. We really can’t ever KNOW what the future holds. Less rooted in reality than hope, optimism can seem as foolish as this “collection of scales and arpeggios.”

Perhaps, however, being optimistic is akin to aging.  The alternatives of pessimism and death are neither good for our health, nor particularly attractive as personal traits!

Peace,
Sonya

I’ve lived with Bach’s Goldberg Variations for a long time now. More than half my lifetime in fact. I would pull them out periodically, feeling that I was revisiting an old friend, but a friend who always has something new to share. I began thinking about Bach and mindfulness last year in a way that meant something to me. Each variation became linked in my mind with a word and that word became something like the “intention” that yoga students are sometimes asked to set for their practice. A word to mediate on and to help draw more from within. For the next 32 weeks I will post one of the variations and write about the word I associated with the music. Sometimes a connection will seem obvious, but more often it will be unexplainable. It became apparent as I worked on this project that I thought about things which I wanted to cultivate in myself, ways of being in the world that were positive. All of the recordings are to be made in my living room, playing the 9 foot Steinway that was given to me on January 5, 2016.

Introspection

Bach shifts to G minor for the first time in Goldberg’s 15th variation, after 14 previous variations in sunny G major.  A minor key does not automatically mean “now we’re sad” in music, but there’s no doubt that Bach has moved from the external, wide-armed optimism of what came before to withdrawn introspection in this variation.

Goldberg Variations, 15 (Introspective)

It is composed as a canon at the fifth, that most open of intervals, confusing our ear with an inconclusiveness that begs to be filled in with an orienting major or minor third.  There is an openness between this variation’s imitative musical lines which invites introspective self-reflection.

Glenn Gould, the great Canadian pianist whose intimacy with The Goldberg Variations gives authority to anything he has said about them, regarded this particular variation as “the most severe and rigorous and beautiful canon.  It’s a piece so moving, so anguished—and so uplifting at the same time— I’ve always thought of Variation 15 as the perfect Good Friday spell.” While we are nearly two weeks removed from Good Friday in liturgical time, we are never really very far from Good Friday in the reality of life’s suffering.

Which is why we petition God, in one of the Episcopal Church’s most beautiful prayers, said during Compline, to “shield the joyous.”  But I digress.

Look inside. What do you see? Some branches of philosophy tell us that what we see – i.e. whatever our consciousness tells us we are experiencing – is true. Indeed, that those observations are infallible, because they can’t be proven untrue! Feelings of happiness, sadness, anger, distress, embarrassment, concern…those are all easy enough to determine for ourselves. Most of the time we don’t have to look very far inside to diagnose how we’re feeling. We just know.

But look a little deeper. What about feelings of jealousy, shame, disconnection? What about those prejudices and biases lurking behind our actions and ideas? How much time do we spend observing others, gauging their emotional state by their words and gestures, judging the actions of others without doing the same for ourselves? Look inside even more deeply. Is that hypocrisy hiding out in the corner? Could smugness and self-satisfaction be covering up bits of racism or gender bias? Does conviction mask cruelty?

Ugh, spending time introspectively could get uncomfortable. As in all things, however, the truth sets us free.  Admitting hypocrisy or smugness clears the way for change. Self-deception, we might discover, cloaks some things worth uncovering, such as our ability to be kind, the potential to be generous in our assumptions, and just as important (more so even?), our worthiness to be loved.

Peace,
Sonya

I’ve lived with Bach’s Goldberg Variations for a long time now. More than half my lifetime in fact. I would pull them out periodically, feeling that I was revisiting an old friend, but a friend who always has something new to share. I began thinking about Bach and mindfulness last year in a way that meant something to me. Each variation became linked in my mind with a word and that word became something like the “intention” that yoga students are sometimes asked to set for their practice. A word to mediate on and to help draw more from within. For the next 32 weeks I will post one of the variations and write about the word I associated with the music. Sometimes a connection will seem obvious, but more often it will be unexplainable. It became apparent as I worked on this project that I thought about things which I wanted to cultivate in myself, ways of being in the world that were positive. All of the recordings are to be made in my living room, playing the 9 foot Steinway that was given to me on January 5, 2016.